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The Organ Music of Samuel Wesley

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The Organ Music of Samuel Wesley Durham E-Theses The organ music of Samuel Wesley Brown, Georey Ernest How to cite: Brown, Georey Ernest (1977) The organ music of Samuel Wesley, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9873/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk ABSTRACT, Like his elder brother Charles, Samuel Wesley (1766^1837) was an infant prodigy who had an oratorio to his.credit by the time he was eight. He was generally considered to be the greatest organist in England, being famed especially for his extemporisations. However, the organ held a minor place in his output as a composer until he became acquainted with the music of J.S.Bach, which he worked untiringly to introduce to the British publico In the early 1800s Wesley began to write a series of voluntaries, published as his Opus 6, which were conceived on a scale grander than had previously been attemptede Although he reversed the general trend towards increasing the number of movements in the voluntary, he enlarged the dimensions of those that remained, gave them a greater impression of serious purpose, and accorded the fugue a status greater even than that which it had enjoyed in the time of Handel and Stanley. In the last twenty years of his life, while continuing to write grand voluntaries in the manner of Opus 6, Wesley also wrote organ music in smaller forms. Prominent among these more varied works are the Short Pieces, as he called them, miniatures which show his genius quite as clearly as the larger works. In 1774 the eight-year-old Wesley presented his oratorio to William Boyce: in 1837, just before he died, he played to Mendelssohn. Thus Wesley's life encompassed great changes in musical taste. That he was able to steer a straighter stylistic course through these changes than many of his lesser contemporaries may be attributed to his tendency to stand back from the immediate developments of his day and draw inspir• ation from older sources, notably polyphony and J.S.Bach; but the latter sovcrce particularly was also to be an inspiration to many of the most progressive composers for the next hundred years and more. THE ORGAN MUSIC OF SAMUEL WESLEY by GEOFFREY ERNEST BROWN submitted for the degree of M.A, in the University of Durham 1977 Faculty of Music The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. No part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree in any university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. CONTENTS Chapter I An Introductory Biography 5 Chapter II The English Organ in the Time of Wesley 19 Chapter III A General Survey of English Organ Music 1800-1840 30 Chapter IV A Division of Wesley's Organ Music into 39 Four Periods and a Consideration of the Organ Music Written before 1800 Chapter V The Third Period and Opus 6 50 Chapter VI The First Part of Qpus 6 59 Chapter VII Later Third Period Volimtaries and Duets 73 Chapter VIII The Short pieces 95 Chapter IX The Voluntaries of 1817 and Op,6 No.12 108 Chapter X Variations 125 Chapter XI The Harding Voluntaries 130 Chapter XII The Later Large-Scale Voluntaries 142 Chapter XIII Didactic Music 159 Chapter XIV The Organ Music of Wesley's Last Years 165 Appendix An Index of Wesley's Organ Works 172 Bibliography 183 CHAPTER I AN INTRODUCTORY BIOGRAPHY The general facts of Samuel Wesley's life have often been told beforey This chapter will therefore concentrate on the activities of Wesley the organist and Wesley the propagandist for Bach, and give only an outline of his career as a whole, sufficient to place these partic• ular aspects in their proper context. Samuel Wesley was born on February 24th 1766 in Bristol, and thus celebrated the same birthday as Handel, although it must be remem• bered that, between Handel's birth and Wesley's, England had changed from the Julian calender to the Gregorian. Samuel was a member of perhaps the most remarkable English family of the eighteenth century. Indeed, knowledge of Samuel Wesley has often been confused by the number of his illustrious relations. His uncle was John Wesley, the founder of Methodism;, his father, Charles Wesley, was John's lieuten• ant and the writer of some eight thousand hymns; his brother, another Charles, was, like Samuel himself, an infant prodigy and composer; his son, Samuel Sebastian, was also a composer, and his reputation has tended to eclipse that of his father. At this point a family tree might help to clarify the facts: Samuel (1662-1735) John (1703-91) Charles (1707-88) Foimder of Methodism Hymn Writer I ' 1 Charles (1757-1834) Samuel (1766-1837) . ,Musician Musician Samuel Sebastian (1810-76) Eliza (1819-95) Musician Musician In 1781 Daines Barrington (1727-1800) published his Miscellanies, a book which includes much information on the early careers of Charles junior and Samuel. It contains quotations from notes made by Charles senior and Barrington's own observations. From this account it seems that Samuel lived his early life under the shadow of his elder brother, who had already achieved fame as a child prodigy before Samuel was born. When Samuel started to pick out tunes on the harpsichord at the age of three, his father wrote that "we did not much regard him, coming after Charles", who had been able to play tunes and put a bass to them at only two years old, Charles received his lessons from Kelway and Boyce, but Samuel was left to his own devices. Charles senior writes: "Whenever Mr, Kelway came to teach him (i.e. Charles junior), Sam constantly attended, and accompanied Charles on the chair. Undaunted by Mr. Kelway's frown, he went on ,,. He was between four and five years old when he got hold of the Oratorio of Samson, and by that alone taught himself to read words. Soon after, he taught himself to write," However Samuel came to Boyce»s notice at the age of eight, by which time he had written an oratorio called Ruth, Barrington added his own comments to those of the boys' father. He saw Samuel, then aged nine, in 1775: "To speak of him first as a performer on the harpsi• chord, he was then able to execute the most, difficult lessons for the instinunent at first sight ... He not only executed crabbed compositions thus at sig^t, but he was equally ready to transpose into any keys, even a fourth.a. I once happened to see some music wet upon his . desk, which, he told me, was a solo for the trumpet. I then asked him if he had heard Fischer upon the hautboy, and would compose an extempore solo, proper for him to execute. To this Sam readily assented... (He) played an extemporary solo... the three movements of which must have lasted not less than ten minutes, and every of which Fischer might have acknowledged for his own," Here is an early reference to Samuel's talent for improvis• ation, which was to be his special claim to fame throughout his career as an organist. The "solo for the trumpet" which Barrington mentions is very probably the Voluntary in D which is still to be found among Wesley's manuscripts in the British Museum and was written about this time. In 1770 Samuel's father bought a large house in Chesterfield Street, Marylebone. For the next eight years the family lived partly in London, partly in Bristol, until the-house in Bristol was finally given up in 1778. Between 1779 and 1785 the house in Chesterfield Street was the scene of seven seasons of subscription concerts in which Charles and Samuel Wesley were the principal performers and composers. In the room where the concerts were held there were two organs and a harpsichord. Both brothers played their own organ compositions, as well as duets for two organs and improvisations. There was a small orchestra of strings and horns available to play over• tures, symphonies and concertos by the young composers. Charles seems to have been the leading organist but Samuel could also shine as a violinist and- took the solo part in his own violin concertos. Charles appears to have had a monopoly on organ concertos. These concerts were patronised by people of the greatest distinction, including the Earl of Mornington (father of the Duke of Wellinii:on) and Samuel Johnson. Some time about 1783, Samuel Wesley startled his family by becoming a Roman Catholic. He seems to have been drawn into the Roman chia'ch by the music at the Chapel of the Portuguese Embassy.
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